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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25134019">vain tears in the thankless sea</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/joanofarcstan/pseuds/joanofarcstan'>joanofarcstan</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Tolkien Gen Week 2020 [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works &amp; Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Character Study, Gen, Introspection, Post-War of Wrath, Suicidal Thoughts, Without a happy ending, and we love suffering, because this is the silm, content warning for that, some maglor being sad and hating himself for what he's done, there is no gore but just be warned</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 10:42:48</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>840</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25134019</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/joanofarcstan/pseuds/joanofarcstan</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Justice is poetry,</i> Maglor thinks to himself. Why should he not find no rest while his victims know no pain, and know no joy while they know no grief?</p><p>He should have chosen the Darkness.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>maglor and pain</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Tolkien Gen Week 2020 [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1818994</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Tolkien Gen Week 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>vain tears in the thankless sea</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Makalaurë sits by the Sea. Once, he might have heard the clear, flowing Telerin melodies, echoing from the seashells. (It is the sound of the ocean, they say, free and friendly and wild with her lovers, and yet sweet and gentle as the salt-tinged breeze.)</p><p>All he hears today is blood. He <i>hears</i> the call of his kin gone before him, and perhaps he is going mad to think the Valar would grant him the gift of their voices through the veil of death and darkness and deceit that separates them, but it is welcome. Something other than his thoughts to keep him company. (And perhaps that is the real indicator that he is going mad.)</p><p>He hears three things.</p><p>The first: blood flows in distant, eerie Formenos. Blood stains the pristine floors, crimson on crystal, and begins a cycle of vengeance and death with no forgiveness. First blood dries by what would have been the flower of Laurelin, and bloodshed begets bloodshed.</p><p>The second: blood roars in his ears at Alqualondë. Blood clumps the sand, mixes in red with the pale gold and white, and brings the Darkness on their people. (For yes, the Darkness came then, and not through the Oath.) Second blood dries by another missed flower of Laurelin, and battle begets battle.</p><p>The third: blood flows in the War of the Jewels, enough, Maglor is sure, to fill the seas. First goes Fëanáro his father, then there is Írissë, and Angaráto, and Aikanáro, and Ñolofinwë, and Findaráto, and Findekáno, and Tyelko, and Curvo, and Moryo, and Turukáno, and then there is Ambarussa, and now there is Maitimo. Their blood dries and the sun rises and sets, and tears beget tears.</p><p>He may as well count the hours by tears; surely there are too many to ever run out. Or perhaps blood—if done carefully, it might even work, and he even still has a knife—is more fitting for someone like him who bears the title of <i>kinslayer</i> before his name.</p><p>Tears for tears, and blood for blood. Is that not fitting?</p><p>'Is it not?' he asks aloud, to the Sea who warns him away from her ships with her briny blows.</p><p>The Sea makes no answer, but Maglor would wager that she approves, the wailing gulls a mouth for her cruel laughter.</p><p>'I suppose it is, then,' he says to no one in particular, and here is more evidence that he is going mad: he imagines that Eärendil flares a little brighter, and that he hears a fragment of a lullaby his mother used to sing to him when he was small.</p><p>A lullaby. His mother. What use does a murderer have for lullabies, or a kinslayer for a mother? A murderer and kinslayer who raised children, granted—and bless them, they have gone on to become fine young warriors and leaders, but that is <i>in spite</i> of their foster parents, not <i>because</i> of them—but a murderer and kinslayer nevertheless. A murderer and kinslayer (one is only a worse version of the other) who cannot pay the debts for his crimes, and is that not the worst sentence?</p><p>(Here is why Makalaurë has not jumped, like Maitimo did:</p><p>1. The Sea would not open her arms for him as the fire did for his brother. For fire will gladly tear someone apart until there is not even ash left of them, but the Sea, in her infinite wisdom and ruthlessness—what else would you expect from someone born of tears?—knows there is more than twice, thrice, a thousand times the pain in lingering than in leaving.</p><p>2. He knew what the Oath would make of him from the very beginning. Makalaurë is not gifted with foresight as his cousins Findaráto and Galadriel, but even he saw that the Oath would end in either eternal darkness or unpardonable wrongs committed by his hand.</p><p>He knows that the Everlasting Darkness is the lesser of the two torments now, and will pay for it until Arda's end. Until then, he shall know rest no more, just as the victims of his blade shall know grief no more. There is a poetic justice to it, is there not?)</p><p>Lightning splits the sky, and Makalaurë half-prays for a moment that it will strike him, but no one would answer his prayers. (He knows this, for he has tried it before, time on time on time, and has concluded that he must be going mad to think that the Valar would ever grant him a mercy so sweet as death.) The rain lashes around him, savage in its temper, and he watches the waves that will not take him thunder against the rock.</p><p>Makalaurë sits by the Sea. Once, he might have heard the clear, flowing Telerin melodies his cousins still sing, he is sure, on the white shores of Eldamar, echoing from their seashells. A shore he will never see again, leaving him only with the memory of blood staining it.</p><p>And he sings a song of mourning.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>as usual, thank you for reading and i hope you liked it! comments are welcome, here or on my tumblr @<a href="https://www.tumblr.com/dashboard/blog/laurierliberal">laurierliberal</a>!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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